


A Room in the Dark of Night

by MySecretIndulgences



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asgard (Marvel), F/M, Humans being idiots, Marvel Universe, Nighttime chats, Other, brief natasha camio, loki can fight, loki needs someone to love too, loki the bookworm, thor understands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MySecretIndulgences/pseuds/MySecretIndulgences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a stranger crash lands in Asgard seemingly from thin air, the God of mischief may be due for a change to his dark heart. Pre Thor movies but requires knowledge/ contains spoilers from The Dark World. LokixOC</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Exchange of Words

Three days ago, what seemed to be woman had crashed in with a scream. Her momentum had carried her between tables full of Asgardians, across the stone of an outdoor court, and into the dirt surrounding some roses. Around her, eyes had widened as they turned to look at whatever had just crashed into their mists, as if it had fallen from the barrier bound sky.

"Guards! Guards!" Someone called, and indeed they had already been on their way, summoned by the woman's piercing scream. When the guards arrived and saw the situation, like they would do to any possible threat, Loki could just imagine those bulky, armor plated guards as they had formed a ring around her and closed in slowly.

Whispers told him she had been taken from the courtyard to the dungeon, no stops in between. The Alfather was strict as ever, with all the fighting happening in the nine realms now.

Loki flipped closed a wallet containing a depiction of the prisoner and some of their basic information closed, before sliding it into his pocket as he stopped before the guards.

"Go on Trickster, we will be listening to everything from out here."

"Of that I do not doubt. Do grab a translator if you fail to understand what you hear." The guard's face darkened within his helm.

With anger burning his gaze he stepped back and stood with his spear at attention, saying nothing further as he allowed Loki to pass. With a smirk Loki slid past the guard to the wall of golden glyphs that parted before him.

Loki stared in from the temporary doorway, a cat preparing to pounce on the brown haired mouse. It was impossible for the mortal woman to have just appeared out of the air. There were only two ways into Asgard; the Bifrost, or _his_ road, and where she 'appeared' was nowhere near either of those locations. She had not come by way of the Bifrost; even that oaf of a guardian would have noticed.

She must have come from through his road, and those who saw her appear, being as drunk as they were, did not notice her until after she was already among them.

_'And they call themselves warriors.'_

If mother were here she would surely not have believed in such nonsense of appearing either, but she was away attending to a matter on another planet. With mother not here, he was to interrogate their 'dangerous' prisoner.

"What are you?" Loki asked.

The only answer was a wordless stare aimed at him from where she sat motionless on a cot pushed into a corner of the room.

She had to be stronger than she appeared. Loki looked at her carefully, searching for a hole, a glitch in appearance, something that would reveal what she actually was. Yet, curiously, he could find no such thing. He saw only a woman in worn clothing, who currently had her legs pulled up defensively with her arms wrapped around herself.

_Truly terrifying indeed._ At least, dangerous enough for _them_ to let him of all people be the one to extract the secret of how she came to be here from her.

With an aggravated sigh that caused her to look up - and in doing so show a pair of most ordinary brown eyes - he got to work. He tried different verbal methods to get her to talk; everything from being powerful and arrogant as he knew Thor would be, to threats.

After hours of wasted time, no matter what he said, she would not say a thing. So much for that book he was in the middle of. He might as well write one of his own on her appearance, and how disappointingly human she was. It was all he had learned. She would not even tell him her name. He did not want this to take days, yet it already looked like this was going to be the sort of thing that would.

This needed to change. What if she had come through his road? What if she told someone else first? Loki raked slim fingers back through shoulder length raven hair and yelled;

"fine! Then do not say a thing to me, other than how you came to be here." His hands clenched into fists at his sides as he leaned over her.

She shrank from him into herself against the wall, her brown eyes large and dark in her pale face.

He took a step back, his eyes sliding away from her face, but not far. They landed on her stretched black and purple striped sleeves. Until that moment they had covered her arms, but when she moved the open cuff had slid back.

He took another step back toward the entrance, followed by more once the glyphs recognized him and opened, allowing him to swiftly exit the room.


	2. What Really Bothers You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things escalate.

Back in his chamber, Loki leaned back into his bed, a leather clad volume falling from his fingers. He had tried to sleep but had not been able to find his way. He had tried to read, but it was no use; he knew not for how long he had sat there staring at page after page, but in all that time not a single word could he now remember. Instead, the fading bruise on the woman's wrist sat heavily just behind his eyes.

For less than a second had he seen it peeked out of the end of her shirt cuff, yet he was certain that his eyes had seen correctly. It had not come from her capture. She had offered almost no resistance. It was days old already, yet the shape of a hand etched in black and blue had still been clear.

It should not matter. To the Alfather she was a means to find a gap in the defenses. Loki had thought she would be a danger to the little unsanctioned trips he took to other realms, and followed along to look into the matter with the good little soldiers. So why could he think of nothing else but that bruise, and those eyes, widened in fear?

 _'Stop this!'_ Loki thought to himself.

This was becoming absurd. He reached for his book and flipped back through two chapters of yellowed pages. He had gotten to the climax, the point of not only this tome, but the point of the entire collection. He'd spent over an hour in his search around the library to find it, combing through shelf after shelf for this last installment. Now he had it, and... and his mind's attention was not being held in the least.

Fine. He would complete his task, this night, then he would find some peace of mind.

Or rather, return to the amount that he usually had.

She was just a human, and if the others learned the location of his road, there would be real trouble.

He made his way back to the cell. He contemplated trying a... different angle than he had earlier. One that he knew would not be approved of, but then, no one else would be around; her guards would wait outside.

The guards stepped to a lose attention at the sound of his steps, waving him on without another glance. He waited for the glyphs to burn and pull apart for him, then stepped in. As he crossed the room's threshold he pulled on an illusion of a type that he very rarely used; one shaped by the contents of the viewer's own mind.

He said nothing, eyes narrowed her way as he waited. He knew not what her fear was; it could be spiders, or snakes; clowns or dogs. First he would need to know, then he could exploit it.

Before he had opened the door, the mortal had been muttering something, now obviously in her sleep. She looked at him with groggy eyes, slowly blinking up at him from where she laid. Her eyes grew wide, the whites red around their edges.

"Aaron..." She said, repeating in a clear voice what she had been muttering. She shook her head back and forth, limp hair flying around her head. "No - no, you can't be here. Don't come - don't come near me, not anymore..." She said, cringing down.

She feared not some insect or animal, but one of her own.

Loki continued to slowly walk forward, and again asked how she had come to be in Asgard.

"You're not Aaron. You're one of _them_ , aren't you? I can't tell you how I got here. I _can't_."

One of them? No, he never would be, not really. It was something he just knew, just as he knew how to weave illusions. Illusions, lies, to never be trusted. Suddenly he was sick of it all, and let the latest one - apparently someone else's face - fall away.

"'One of them' ? I am just as out of place here as you." He said, limbs folding to rest down on a chair. He leaned his head against the backing of the chair, and with closed eyes again asked; "Tell me how..."

"I told you -"

"do let me finish." Loki said, though without the usual cocktail tones of sarcasm, that flare of anger, or hint of condescension. "Tell me how you came to have those bruises on your arms."

"Well I did fall, and then went rolling across that fancy rock yard." From the flare of fire in her voice, Loki would have bet the little mouse was glaring at him.

"I am not a fool. Those, though still dark, are fading, and must be days old. You have not been here long enough to have acquired them." Though if his original theory had been correct, it would have been possible. As it was, it was not feasible that a mortal could climb down that cliff face, let alone try to swim to the city.

Not with those thin arms.

"Why should I tell you? Like you care anyway."

"Why?" Why indeed. "Why? Because I am here, because you have yet to tell anyone else; if you had whatever authoritarians are in your world should have done something about it once the first set that branded you.

Because we are both here, neither of us ether able to sleep or wanting to, and a room in the dark of night may yet yield true words. Truth, or release." Loki said, opening blues eyes to look at her as he finished.

"You're strange, you know that?"

"So I have been told." He said. She looked away from him, down at the floor, and around the bare room. She pulled at the cuffs of her sleeves and a loose thread on the ends of her blue pants. She shook her head; so she was not going to answer him then.

Or so he assumed, then she started to speak softly, but in a rush, the words tripping over themselves like water in a stream.

"It's been going on for so long that it was just part of life now - just something that sometimes happened, and I'd long ago accepted it. Afterwards he would always be so sorry and apologetic and everything. Then - then this last time, something was different. Maybe I was different, maybe I'd done something wrong too many times, but when he came at me - I saw murder in his eyes. He'd never looked at me like that before. When he tried to grab me, I... I hit him on the head with the closest thing, a coffee cup that shattered against his head. It made him loosen his hold on me a bit, and I got loose and ran away.

I remember running, and I remember him coming, following me. I remember wanting to be somewhere else - anywhere else, and then I was. I was here." She finished, now looking straight at Loki.

Loki sat still. This was why humans could not be trusted to govern themselves. They murdered, scarred, and maimed each other. No one had been watching over this young woman. No one had stopped this Aaron.

"Thank you, for sharing this secret with me." Having spoken, and finally knowing why, Loki closed his eyes as his tired mind finally allowed him to sleep.

* * *

A/N Oh Loki, how could you fall asleep in a prisoner's room? The rumors, the rumors~

Hello everyone! I would love to hear what you have to say about the story so far down below :) 


	3. Where to Go Now

"Hey, wake up. Hey man, wake up." Said someone, shaking his shoulder. Loki woke, momentarily confused by his surroundings before he remembered that he was in the woman's cell, and why he had been there.

"The woman who brings my food will be here soon - you don't want them to see that you spent the night in here; you need to, to get up." She said as he come completely awake.

"Yes, it would not do well for them to find their hound already here without a master to supervise it." He said, swiftly standing and crossing to the door, where he paused. With a hand raised to the glyphs, he turned back towards her.

"You may call me Loki."

"My name's Emilie."

"Good morning, Emilie." Loki replied with a nodd before he started down the hall. Footsteps were coming toward him, blocking his exit. He stepped back into the shadows of an alcove and wove an illusion that covered his slightly bedraggled appearance and mussed hair. Then he stepped out.

The poor woman almost dropped the tray she was holding in her shock.

"My lord, I was not aware that you were down here." She said, though he could see the string of expletives that blazed behind her eyes. Perhaps it would be best not to push this one, for today anyway. Perhaps another time...

"With yesterday having yielded nothing, I had assumed that we would start earlier today," he smoothly lied, "yet it seems that I was the only one to have thought thus." That part at least was not a lie. The others were most likely still in a drunken sleep. He could just skip them then, and tell the Alfather what he had learned about how Emilie had come to be in their world.

As he walked, the palace was almost silent. Most of those who were the usual source of noise really were still off asleep in their chambers. Well then, it simply meant that he had only to deal with the nervous glances the servants cast out of the corners of their eyes. Like sheep they fearfully stumbled out of his path, as if he were a wolf silently passing them by.

At court he learned that his father was not there, but was rather in a council room. He entered without announcement or knocking.

"Let me speak with her. Loki shall learn not from her, Father. He will try, but his tricks will get him nowhere in this."

"Really?" Loki asked from behind Thor, and for a moment enjoyed the small satisfaction that came with having come behind his brother without the warrior noticing.

"You doubt much, brother." Loki continued.

"It is not doubt when you know it to be true."

"Perhaps, but how do you know such a thing to be true? You were not there yesterday, and are, in fact, wrong in your assumption."

"Then you have learned something. Well get on with it," said the Alfather.

"She said that she was running, and fell, to find herself here. She must have come through a temporary gate, a connection, between our realm and the mortal's. I doubt that it remains. No others will be able to follow her."

"Hmm... possible; sometimes the worlds do brush, however briefly even without the Alignment. Strange it is though, that she should have stumbled across such a place in the brief span that it existed," he said as he cast a scrutinizing gaze upon Loki.

"No matter; if that's all then she can be sent back to where she came from now."

"Father, I... I think that it would be best if she were to remain here, at least for a time." Said Loki.

"And I think that she should be sent back! There is no reason for her to stay any longer." Replied the Alfather, his voice rising in volume.

"Father, you can not -" Sour choice of words.

"Can not? Can not! Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do? Clearly you have spent too much time with this mortal, for it has addled your brain! Go to your chambers and clear your head, my son." Guards he called, signaling to them that Loki was to have an escort.

"Father, you - please, father; don't send her back there! Father, don't send Emilie back there!" Loki cried as he was dragged from the chamber.

* * *

Back and forth Loki paced across the floor like a caged tiger. To the door; cross to the bed, around to the shelves, back to the door. He should not have said what he'd said the way he had, but he'd had to say something. It had not been possible for him to simply stand there, knowing that she was going to be sent right back to that abuse.

 _But why should you care?_ A small voice in the back of his mind asked, and he had no answer for it.

A knock came at the door, and he ignored it. His feet continued to trace the same path over and over again, his head bowed slightly as he thought.

Again it came, and again he ignored it. Then the door opened anyway as his brother came into the room, hurrying to close it behind himself.

"You will carve a rut in the floor if you continue that, brother."

"Why are you here? Have you come to invite me to one of your little parties? You know that I am being confined to my room like the bad little boy that I am. Have you come to mock me?"

"Loki, shut up. I came to ask you why."

"Why? Why what?" He said, looking at a shelf of books behind his brother.

"Why speak out against our father as you did? She is being sent home; surely that is what she wants."

"But it's not!" he yelled and turned to look at his brother, "but it's not." He continued more reasonably. "I do not know all the details of it, but she did not mean to come here exactly. She was trying to escape from something. We are the protectors of the realms, and she a citizen of one.

She sought protection; why send her back now that she has found it?"

"Brother, she is mortal. This...this is not like you."

"I know."

"You care for her." Said Thor, a note of something, perhaps wonder, in his voice.

"...I know."

"You care for this woman, and that means that if you believe her to be in danger, than you must go after her."

"I cannot take the Bifrost there, for father has surely already spoken to the guardian."

"Then take your way. Do not look so shocked! Did you think that I would not notice how you sometimes disappear, and when doing so not use the Bifrost?"

"Even if I could get there, there are guards right outside, with orders to not let me pass I am sure."

"You always turn to your illusions; why not use them now?"

"If I were to leave, it would not be long before my disappearance was discovered. They would find me before I could even get to her realm, let alone find her there."

"We can manage something. You do have your illusions, and we have two people here." He said with a smile as he thumped Loki on the shoulder.

"What are you suggesting?"


	4. I Believe I Can Fly - Or Fall Very Well

Loki pushed the throttle further. The water below looked as if it was a forged sea-green blade, slick as ice as it ran. The wind howled in his ears as it tossed his hair around his head. He leaned forward and it flowed back to allow him to see. He did not hear any sounds of pursuit, yet, but they were sure to soon come.

How unlike his brother it had been, to stay behind disguised as Loki. Unquestionably it had been reckless, nothing new there, but to do something so unselfish... and to have come up with such a plan. Perhaps the oaf _did_ have a brain in that thick skull of his after all.

Loki heard the sound of blades spinning behind him, and turned around. Pursuit had arrived - and in full force.

He'd been staying close down to the water, but now rose, climbing up into the air so that he was above those perusing him.

The clear cold air stung his lungs and made his eyes water, but he pushed it out of his mind. Better to be above their shooting range if it should come to that - highly unlikely - and they also could not drop down onto his craft this way. Even with these two possibilities almost crossed out, he began to weave back and forth. He was not going to get caught, not now.

Straight ahead the cliff face rose up above out of the water, stretching to impossible heights above so that they pierced the sky. They would be impossible to rise above - and so it was a good thing that he wasn't going over.

He was going through - at least part of the way.

Closer and closer it came, and Loki correctly assumed that those following him would fall back, for the most part. Just one was left on his tail.

Suddenly he pushed hard on the throttle so that the nose of his craft dipped downwards towards the water, right before he would have crashed into the cliff side. As he fell, he secretly was a little glad to not hear the sound of those behind him crashing. He turned just as sharply inwards, towards the wall beside him. The passage that he entered was small - from the outside no more than a cave opening, a crack in the cliff-side. But he of all people knew that appearances could be deceiving.

Still, it was extremely narrow, and as he raced along against himself, against time, the walls on either side crept closer and closer. The wind was no longer a dull roar, but instead a shriek that rose in volume to scratch at his ears - a beast magnified by the walls that were now only an arm's length away.

Only a hand's breath away.

_He pictured Emilie._

An inch.

_He concentrated on not only directing the craft -_

A breath -

_but on wanting to be where she was-_

When he came out on the other side; he came out in another world.


	5. Why are You Chasing Me

Rain fell in a dismal drizzle, just enough to make those who hurried past Loki on there way complain about the weather. He however, did not. No, instead he kept this collar up and continued down the street, searching for any sign of Emilie. People attempted to wayward him, to distract him from his course with the wares that they were selling, As they sidestepped into his path, he stepped right around them; he didn't have time to pay them any attention.

Just like he didn't have the time to confront the trio that had started tailing him about two blocks ago.

He rounded a corner, and found an alleyway branching off to his right. Taking the offered opportunity, he took off down it at a sprint, footsteps pounding behind him. As he neared the ally's exit a hand darted out - and pulled him in through a door that was closed behind him.

He spun around with his eyes searching the shadows, ready to confront whoever it was. Yet instead of finding himself faced with a fight, he saw a woman. She was clothed completely in black with short red hair, and had a finger lifted to her lips for silence while her other hand motioned him away from the door. With no evident reason against doing so he backed away, though he maintained a distance from her as well.

Outside what sounded like a herd of stampeding feet passed by the door, and not one of them stopped to check inside. Agonizingly slow, a couple minutes passed by while both remained completely motionless. The woman drew a handgun with secure familiarity while listen for the sound of stranglers or of someone returning to the area.

Loki opened his mouth to ask a question; probably something about why, or who. She broke that conversation off rather quickly by taking off up a staircase, and he hurried after her. He caught up with her and kept pace - though not as easily as he expected; for a human, she was fast.

After the first flight of stairs she began halting for a moment at each level to listen and check to make sure no one was coming down the bend above them.

"Those were the thugs of a very... infamous individual that is involved in a job that I'm doing," she said as she ran up the third flight of stairs, "they could have been assigned to target you particularly. I hope not, because until I've caught said individual you wouldn't be safe anywhere."

"You assume that I cannot defend myself?" ' _How offensive_.'

"If you're being targeted, there won't be anywhere safe for you. On the other hand, this could be completely random; when this group gets bored they tend to attack anything that stands out, and believe me, in that get-up, you stand out. If that's all, they could have already lost interest and you should be fine." She said right before the door far down below them slammed open.

Pounding feet crashed up the metal steps, thunderously loud compared to their quarries nimble ones.

When faced with a door marked with an exit sign neither individual paused but kept going at full speed. She was still slightly in the lead, and took off. Like an arrow released she sped across the rooftop, pushing off of Loki as she jumped across an ally to the far building. Her off-setting momentum pushed him back onto the roof's rain-slicked top.

"Nothing personal! But if they're targeting you nowhere's safe, not for you or anyone with you!" She looked back to yell as she paused on the made a sound of disgust.

She turned away and took off.

His eyes were already starting to look around the blacktop roof, and after spotting a fire-escape he rushed towards it. With graceful steps he made his way down the zig-zaging ladder with just enough time to run to the end of an alleyway and conceal himself before his pursuit looked over the roof's edge.

Though they could not see him, the men were not completely thick. While most of a group took off over the rooftops, betting that they could somehow catching up with what they could no longer see, two were ordered to peel away from the group and go down to search the surrounding area.

Starting with the ally where Loki hid, they peered around stacks of crates, and into a mostly empty trash can. That was fine. Just so long as they did not step through the illusion that he had set up of a copy of the wall, to look at him in narrow space.

They made their slow way toward his end of the ally, attempting to be thorough. Their steps were heavy, with their shoes squeaking from the wet concrete and bits of glass that littered the ground. Their breathing was quick, ragged as they continued to pant from their recent exertions.

There was only so much that they could shift through, and soon were finished with their inspection. Good, now they would leave and he could recommence his searching...Wait no, they weren't leaving. Yes they were done, but rather than leave they were going to be lazy.

"We'll not catch that demon of a woman. She always slips away." The older of the two sat down upon an overturned crate.

With a shrug his partner took a seat not far away on the bare stone. He lit a cigarette, illuminating weathered cheeks and an unshaven face.

"Take that down over there." The first waved him away as the smoke curled.

Closer and closer he came to where Loki stood completely still behind his illusionary wall. A light breeze made it's way down through the ally, blowing puffs of bitter smoke lazily towards him. He wrinkled his nose, wanting to lift a hand and cover it so that he would not be forced to smell such an odor.

The man leaned back against the wall, close enough now to recline against it - or so went appearances.

Instead another foot of air actually existed, and he stumbled backwards with a yell. Which was cut off as a solid fist slammed into his shocked face. He fell sideways back against the wall before collapsing to the ground in a heap as another blow descended. Having heard his yell the other fellow spun around towards the source of the sound, and saw quite the strange sight. He saw the other man, knocked out and on the ground, or most of him anyway. Part of his body appeared to have sunken into the wall, with a leg and half of the body gone. Rather stupidly the other man can towards the prone figure, his mouth agape.

This time Loki did not wait for him to cross the illusion, but instead stepped out himself. The man took a surprisingly quick swing at Loki's head, that he dodged. When the next one came, he stepped inside the man's swing and delivered one of his own. It landed solidly to the underside of the man's jaw with a thunk.

The man's head snapped back with a release of breath. His knees buckled beneath him to leave him sprawled across the ground. The man laid still, only the rise and fall of his chest confirmed that he was still alive.

With the ghost of a smirk on his face, Loki stepped over the fallen bodies of the two men. He did not want to waste any more time dealing with such buffoons.

Loki still had her wallet, and inside of it, her address. It would be a start.


	6. Time to Settle a Debt

No sound reached Loki's ears from inside the decrepit hulk of metal and thin wood, but light leaked into the night from cracks along the blacked out windows. Aaron might be there - and so might Emilie.

With barely a glance to ensure no naive human would see him and call for help, Loki strode up the rocky driveway, across a strip of overgrown grass, and to the front door. He reached out and touched a finger to the flickering porch light. Frost crackled as it spread across the glass and inner filament. A brief sizzle and the light burst before going out.

Loki drew his dagger, the blade blending into shadow as it eluded all light. The doorknob stuck once before turning smoothly beneath his other hand. As he stepped inside, his eyes darted around an open living room and kitchen area, where brown beer bottles laying on their sides fought containers of food for space. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of stale beer, but kept his knife ready at his side.

No Emilie, and no Aaron, yet.

Stepping quickly, he passed cardboard containers as he made his way further in through an opening on the side of the room. A quick glance into the first on the right showed a bedroom, also empty of people but holding plenty of clutter, trash, and more beer. Where were they? Why wasn't anyone confronting him yet? Loki searched a bathroom and a room made for cleaning clothes that had another exit, but both were empty.

The house was empty of people, but he could find something else here that could lead him to where they were. If not… he could go back and bring Thor with him next time.

Loki returned to the bedroom. A second glance showed a central pile of men's clothes from which others seemed to radiate, and a pair of weights sitting in a corner on top of a cement block. He walked around a bed on the floor with mix-matched sheets and a blanket twisted into a pile. Something dark and metallic wedged between the top of the bed and the wall caught his eye.

His knee rammed into something as he knelt. With a hiss at the familiar pain, Loki dug under the blankets and pulled out a book titled Les Miserables, its cover soft from use.

His hair fell forward around his face as he bent his head forward and opened the book. A flower was nestled into the binding, its petals faded from time. After a moment Loki closed the book softly and set it to the side before grabbing what had first caught his eye.

The handle of the object was cold as it filled the palm of his hand, as was the barrel and chamber, and Loki knew it was a weapon of death. He discarded it for a second metallic object that had been hidden from view by the first.

It was slim and black with a drawing of knives stuck on one side, with what felt like a sheet of glass on the other. When his finger tapped the glass, he saw Emilie with a smile forced onto her face, and beside her a smug man with short blond hair and some muscle, but nothing compared to what Thor had.

Loki's eyes lowered as he listened to a car rumble by the trailer and a dog bark somewhere nearby. Legs and arms loose, he stood. If Aaron was as attached to this device as other humans were, he would be back for it soon, and Loki would be ready.

He would set up snakes and spiders at the front to meet Aaron when he arrived, and wait in one of the other rooms.

New plans branched into being in Loki's mind as he walked out of the bedroom, but all stopped as he heard the crack of the front door opening.

One step after another Loki rounded the corner out of the room and on down the dim hall.

"What the hell?" Aaron asked, and stopped in the middle of the living room. Behind him, Emilie raised her head, her small frown flipping and breaking open into a wide smile despite the fresh black eye that was beginning to bloom on her face.

"Hello there. I have a debt to settle on Emilie's behalf, after which we will both be leaving, if she has no objections?"

"None at all," Emilie said as Aaron again questioned why Loki was there and stated that Emilie wouldn't be going anywhere with him.

"She can go wherever she pleases you brute." Loki put away his knife - he wouldn't be needing it.

Aaron took the last step to tower over where Loki now stood still in the middle of the room. His muscles bunching in his arm and chest, Aaron swung a meaty fist at Loki's face. Loki ducked beneath the blow and stepped behind the man. Aaron was forced to turn around in place to follow him before he could swing again.

"How slow you are," he taunted.

"Shut up!"

Aaron made a grab for one of the bottles sitting on a small table beside the couch. Loki readied himself to dodge a blow, but instead, Aaron threw the bottle.

When Loki caught the projectile in front of his hips, his legs were knocked out from beneath him. He fell to the floor, pulling his head in so that it only clipped the edge of the table.

Pushing away the sudden pain in his head Loki shoved himself up with one hand while grabbing the foot that swung at him with the other.

Aaron crashed down with a much heavier thud. As he groaned and looked up at Loki, whatever thought had been there was gone now, only pain and murder sitting within his eyes.

"Stay down," Loki said anyway.

Aaron yelled wordlessly while Loki stepped back and allowed him to climb to his feet. Chin tucked in Aaron charged at Loki, managing to just stop short of slamming into the wall when Loki sidestepped him. Before he could turn around, a fist slammed into the side of his square face.

"That was for the black eye," Loki said with heat as the brute shook his head to clear away black spots.

Before he could recover, Loki punched him again in the face, slamming his head back against the wall. Continuing to move he swung at Aaron's soft stomach.

Onion and beer breath left Aaron in a rush as his lungs emptied. He fell to his knees to kneel on the stained carpet. Loki swiftly kicked him in the stomach with his boot before he could catch his breath, and punched him so that he sat there without moving.

"Stay awake," Loki ordered as he crouched beside Aaron. "Still awake?" Loki asked the clouded eyes that searched for his own as his fingers laced around Aaron's forearms.

Loki's hands lost their light tone and blue spread like ink in water to cover the skin.

"You will never touch her again," he said as frost reached for the warm skin beneath his hands.

Aaron jerked in his grasp, trying to pull away, but the grip that held him was stronger than what such a wimpy man should have.

"You will never go near her again," Loki said as Aaron began to scream.

Loki ignored Aaron's screams, remembering the terror in Emilie's eyes when Loki's illusion had made her eyes lie and see him as Aaron. Pale blue ice spread beneath Loki's hands, seeping through muscle to dig into skin.

When Aaron's screams turned piecing and tears ran down his cheeks, Loki let go and stood up.

"Say it; you will never go near Emilie again," Loki demanded.

Aaron whimpered a string of something that sounded vaguely like the words Loki had asked for.

Before Loki could open his mouth to say anything else, a small foot swung into the space between him and Aaron and kept going.

As Emilie's well-aimed kick struck between Aaron's legs he slumped to the side with a moan, eyes closing as he fell conscious.

"Serves you right, you ass. You abusive, horrible, horrible…"

She turned and placed her head on Loki's chest, her words lost to sobs. Loki slowly wrapped an arm around her frame as it shook.

"Shh." He whispered into her hair.

It stunk, having gone days without being cleaned, but he didn't pull away. When she continued to cling to him, he rubbed her back while she cried.

"Thank you," she said once her tears dried. "Let's get out of here."

As she started for the front door, Loki heard sirens, in the distance now but coming closer.

"No, the other way." He said.

He waited for her to turn, and nod her head. "Yeah, I hear them now, too."

Emilie lead the way to the exit Loki had seen in the washroom.

"Is there anything you want to grab now? I doubt you shall be able to come back."

"No," she said with barely a moment of thought. "My wallet was taken the other night, and there's nothing here."

She opened the door, and with a twist of her head to check both directions, climbed down the back stairs. Loki followed a step behind her as they went through the narrow space between two other trailers. They climbed over hitches and stood still when the machines with the sirens barreled past.

"What now?" Emilie asked Loki at the gate to the trailer park.

She leaned against the chain-link fence encircling the compound, eyes looking at something far away that he could not see. Maybe her thoughts whirled, or maybe they lay still from shock, Loki could only guess. Mind reading was not among his many talents.

"I have a brother waiting for me to come back and release him, if he has managed to last this long," Loki said with a smile and a shake of his head. "If Alfather, father has found him out, he will be furious with me for disobeying him -"

"Can I go with you?" She interrupted, the pitch of her voice pushed up and breathless.

Loki turned his head to look at her before speaking.

"Go back with me?" He asked softly. "That thing may live here, but this is your world, this is what you know. Could you leave that?"

"You seemed to get here quick. You have a way back and forth so I could always come back, and besides," she said with a grin as she linked an arm around his, "I heard the guys guarding me call you the Trickster. Aren't pranks easier to pull with a little help?"

That explained her grin. One spread across Loki's face as he thought about it. Maybe she was right - there had never been any stopping his coming and going, and oh, what fun they would have.

With her arm still linked through his own, he stepped out to the middle of the street.

"Guardian!" Loki leaned back his head to yell at the sky.

The night sky began to glow brighter and brighter, until it split and light surrounded where they stood. In a moment they were gone, leaving nothing behind but the sound of fading laughter and a strange symbol stamped into the ground.

After all, what sort of match would his father be for Loki with another at the Trickster's side?


End file.
